Cara wandered out of the entrance hall and onto the grounds, satchel slung over one shoulder, stuffed to overflowing with schoolbooks, parchment, quills and ink. She'd decided to iron out a bit of studying between lessons, and as such was dressed in her school uniform—a red-and-gold tie and grey cardigan over a white blouse; black skirt and nylon stockings; and a set of black shoes that had lost a lot of their luster during the year. Cara's hair had been braided into one lengthy rope and slung over her shoulder, hanging down against her chest.

She paused in front of a group of fifth year Gryffindors, heading over as they beckoned her. Cara engaged in brief conversation with the huddle, and then—likely on request—had morphed her face into Professor Storm's! How delightful. She gave her classmates reproachful, authoritative looks, and they squealed with laughter, thoroughly amused by her antics. Next up, she tried Headmistress McGonagall on for size, and told off a waify blonde for having a tear in her skirt.

Before long, Cara made her excuses and separated from the group, having turned back into the petite raven-locked girl that she had exited the castle as. With many farewells and waves, she managed to escape her peers and tromped down towards the Quidditch pitch, where she hauled herself up into one of the stands—in which she was thoroughly alone—and began to set her books out on the bench beside her, wondering where to begin.

Harri had been perched up on top of one of the covered walkways within the courtyard. It wasn't too hard to get up on. The old stonework of the castle made it easy enough to climb and it let her stay out of sight of the Professors when she needed to. Now that the weather was getting nice again she started climbing just for the fun of it.

She lay on the shingles staring at the clouds when voices below caught her attention. Rolling to her side she watched the upper class men chit chat. She didn't bother stopping herself from rolling her eyes. Girls were so ridiculous. She was about to turn back to the clouds when she noticed Cara shape-shift. She had only managed to catch the older girl do it a handful of times before but never this close up. It was like something out of an episode of Doctor Who!

Harri got to her feet as Cara headed off. She ran across the shingles, slid as the walkway ended and flipped down off the edge grabbing a sconce just in time to slow her descent before kicking off from the wall and landing in the grass below. As she came to her feet she made a futile effort of dusting some dirt from her trousers before headed off toward the Quidditch pitch.

Harri climbed into the stands a few rows behind Cara, "what kinda magic is that anyways?"

Cara jumped with a quiet squeak as Harri spoke, wheeling around to face the boyish girl. Once she spied her, Cara relaxed, shaking her head—she had been sure she was alone. Where had Harri come from? Sneaky, sneaky.

"What kinda magic is that, anyways?"

"What magic, love?" Cara asked, cocking her head slightly to the side as she sunk onto one of the benches.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, cottoning on.

"You—oh, you saw me? Just a moment ago? You're asking how I can change? It's—er..."

Cara paused, knitting her brow together slightly. She wasn't one to shy away from displaying or discussing her powers, but—well, she had intended to get some studying done... her O.W.L.s weren't that far away, and if she had any hope of scraping by with an A in Potions and Herbology, she'd have to start cramming.

Nonetheless, she found herself unable to deny Harri's youthful curiosity.

"I'm a metamorphmagus, love. It's a—ah—I was born with it, yanno? Well... they say it's hereditary, but both of my parents were muggles, so it's a little confusing, frankly, but... as I reckon you saw, I can change the way I look without too much work.

"Sort of like polyjuice potion, or transfiguration—but I don't need a potion or a wand to do it. Just have to concentrate a tad, is all."

Harri leaned forward against the seats in front of her making her already small frame sort of shrink into the stands. She squished her nose up at being called 'love'. She knew it was just the way people talked but she didn't have to like it. It reminded her of Grandma Petunia. She was always calling Harri cutesy names like that. As if calling her cutie, sweetie and dove would soften Harri's demeanor. She had once heard her father talking about it when he didn't think she was listening - apparently her grandmother just couldn't bring herself to call her Harri.

"So . . . Ye were just born magic?" She had a base understanding how almost every witch and wizard were in fact born magical. Neither of her parents were magical but her Great Aunt Lily had been a witch and her cousin was a Wizard. Maybe it just skipped a generation or two.

"Ye sure yer not jus an alien?" In the past ten months she had learned that nearly every fairy tale creature she had ever heard of was actually real. Why not aliens as well?

She bent her elbows and leaned her chin in her hands, "shame ye can't learn it though. That would be brilliant." She sat up straight for a moment as if she just registered what Cara had said, "Wait, hold on, yer tellin me there's a potion that let's ye shape shift?"

"So . . . Ye were just born magic?"

Cara smiled.

"Well—we all were, weren't we? I get what you mean, though, and yeah, more or less... mam says my hair was changing colors 'bout half an hour after I was born."

She wrinkled her nose, grinning now.

"That was about... ah, fifteen minutes before somebody from the Ministry showed up to—yanno—explain everything to my parents."

"Ye sure yer not jus an alien?"

At this, Cara giggled, shaking her head.

"I mean—I don't think I am, but I reckon I wouldn't put anything past myself at this point! Other than the whole... shape shifting thing, I'm about as normal as you are, love."

She carried on with the terms of endearment; it was a speech pattern far too ingrained to break, and hardly reserved for any specific gender or age.

"Shame ye can't learn it though. That would be brilliant."

"I reckon it'd be a real nightmare for—"

Cara was cut off mid-sentence by Harri's abrupt exclamation.

"Wait, hold on, yer tellin me there's a potion that let's ye shape shift?"

"Well—yeah," Cara replied, blinking.

"We learned about it in potions—er... this year or last year, I think. Kinda blurs together, to be honest, but yeah. It's nasty complicated, lots of opportunities to mess it up and really do yourself in, so there aren't many people that try to make it—you can imagine most of the people that want to brew a batch up need it for nefarious purposes, eh?

"Anyway, it's not quite the same—it doesn't last for too long, an hour or so, I think, and you can only turn into one person. Gotta get a piece of 'em, like their hair, or something."

Harri thought back to when she had discovered her own magic. Her Dad had always been weird about the strange things that happened around her. Any normal parent would have yelled at her about it but not her Dad. He would always get this squirrely look in this eye and tell her how important it was to be herself. It wasn't until she got her letter that her Dad sat her down and told her about him. Harry Potter, his cousin that was raised alongside him like a brother. The magical boy that had saved his life from the invisible monsters. The boy she had been named after.

Harri couldn't help the chuckle that escaped when Cara said she was just as normal as her. Harri was far from normal even back magical standards.

She listened closely to the older girl's explanation of the Polyjuice Potion before scoffing and leaning into her hands again, "Thousands of years of Magic, ye think they'd figure out how to make ye turn inta someone for longer than an hour." Harri was big in believing that she could do anything with magic, despite those essential laws or rules or whatever it was Professor Singh had said when she asked him about it. Laws were meant to be broken, limits were meant to be pushed. It was how Harri had always lived. Constantly fighting against what people thought were true.

"Thousands of years of Magic, ye think they'd figure out how to make ye turn inta someone for longer than an hour."

"You'd think, huh? I dunno, I'm not exactly the model of appreciation for Potions class—I'm utter rubbish at it. Herbology, too. Ugh."

Cara took a seat on the benches, smoothing out her pleated skirt and smiling at Harri.

"What's your name, anyhow? I've seen you around—and I know we're housemates—but we've never really chatted before, have we? I'm Cara, for the record. Cara Siger."

Harri chuckled, "Ye kiddin' me? Herbology's great! The teacher actually encourages you to get dirty. Best class ever."

She sat up fully when Cara introduced herself. She wasn't surprised she didn't know her name. The older girl was at least a fifth year, if not older. She had only really caught her eye because of the shape shifting. Otherwise Harri likely would have ignored her, like she did with most girls. Unless they were willing to help out with a prank or played on the Quidditch team, Harri paid them no mind.

"Harri Dursley." She never introduced herself with her full name. She never saw the point of it. It always bugged her when people said 'the names Thomas but my friends call me Tommy.' Why bother? If you were just going to have people call you by your Nick name why should they even know your full name? Aside from all that, she simply hated how girly her name was.

She leaned forward again, "So what all can you turn into?"